Orange County Fire Capt. Joe Kerr snapped off a dry, brittle branch from a laurel sumac bush and declared it a foreboding sign of the fire hazards that lurk in the county's drought-stricken hills and canyons.

"If we go unscathed this year and don't have a major fire, it'll be a miracle," he said. "The bottom line is that the hills are going to burn. It's not a matter of if , it's a matter of when. "

Such is the outlook among fire officials throughout the state today as they officially open yet another fire season.

For months, firefighters, developers and homeowners have been scrambling to remove dry weeds and dead plants and build firebreaks in the county's backcountry in preparation for fire season. Today, county officials are posting warning signs, and closing about 97,000 acres to the public, mostly in rugged canyon areas throughout the county.

"This is our fourth drought year," Kerr said. "So far this year, we are eight inches below the normal rainfall." He said plants, like the laurel sumac bush, already are as dry as would normally be found in midsummer.

"Years past we've said, 'This is a bad one, this is a bad one.' Well, this year is also a bad one. Things have been escalating. . . . We don't want the public to think we're crying wolf, but it's bad," Kerr said.

With each successive drought year, more dry and dead plants accumulate, meaning a great deal more kindling for fires.

Fire officials have said that the conditions in the county are the worst they have been since the late 1940s, when there was a prolonged drought. Authorities are hoping that the county will experience some rainfall in the next couple of months, but they said fire hazards would still exist even with substantial precipitation.

Even without drought conditions, Southern California has always been a region where brush fires flourish. When high temperatures dry out the brush and arid Santa Ana winds blow through the region, "the stage is set for a worse case scenario," Kerr said. Over the past several decades, dozens of people have died and hundreds of structures have been destroyed in Southern California fires.

Favorable weather conditions--and luck--have spared Orange County of huge fires in the past couple of years.

The county, however, has not escaped unscathed. In June, 1989, firefighters from Orange and Riverside counties battled a Cleveland National Forest blaze that burned more than 8,200 acres and destroyed 11 structures.